For Don Nelson, life is good at his Maui home

Don Nelson has traded the thrills and glamour of NBA life for this quiet little town on Maui, but there's no shortage of excitement.

Earlier in the day, as Nelson was relaxing on his back porch, two gigantic sea turtles lumbered ashore on the nearby rocks and enjoyed a romantic interlude.

Nelson got a big kick out of that. Whatever you say about Nelson - and opinions about him are all over the map - you have to give it up for a guy who enjoys life, whose mai-tai glass is perpetually half full.

Fate has been good to Nelson. In 1965, he was a third-year pro, a backup forward for the Lakers. When Elgin Baylor hurt a knee, Nelson got the call. He played well in the NBA Finals, against the mighty Boston Celtics, and caught the eye of Boston coach Red Auerbach. The next season, Nelson was cut by the Lakers and went home to the Midwest to plan his future. A month later, he got a call from Auerbach.

"I'd'a been a high school coach in Illinois," Nelson says, puffing a gigantic cigar, the smoke no doubt a familiar sight to passing turtles and whales.

Instead, Nelson is the winningest coach in NBA history, owner of half (give or take) of Maui, and, seemingly, a guy who knows he has been dealt a good hand.

Nelson and his wife, Miss Joy, live in a newly built manse in a fenced-in seaside compound in downtown Paia (pie-E-uh), a little sailboarding and tourist town. The home is divided in half, so half can be rented out, though Nelson doesn't seem very aggressive about renting it. Mostly it's open for drop-in visitors, like Bill Walton.

A big tourist activity is to coast on bicycles down the long road from the top of the giant Haleakala crater.

"Walton rode up the mountain," Nelson says with a laugh.

As he gives a tour of the house, Nelson is followed closely by his entourage: Pebbles, Nellie and Lilly, three dogs rescued from a shelter.

Island holdings

Next door, Nelson owns two rental units, and just up the alley, he owns a building housing several shops, yoga and pilates studios, and an art gallery. Below the shops are Nelson's cigar room and his poker room.

Nelson's holdings on Maui include 22 acres of farmland on the slopes of Haleakala. He planted flowers, for profit, and olive trees, with plans to start an olive-oil business. He also planted koa trees. What does a guy do with koa trees? Cut 'em down?

Nelson, with his home 20 feet from the Pacific Ocean, doesn't swim, surf or float.

"I'm not a water guy," he says.

He still enjoys this relatively undeveloped side of the island by hiking into the rain forest and finding hidden waterfalls and pools. And he tends to his businesses.

"I'm very busy," Nelson says. "I've got tons of stuff to do."

A home is found

Nelson and Miss Joy discovered Maui (and you thought it was Captain Cook) in 1963 when the Lakers played a preseason game in Lahaina. They later honeymooned on Maui and came here with the Celtics one year to celebrate an NBA title. Don sent Miss Joy to find a house to buy, which they still own.

They spend some time in Dallas and in Oakland, but Maui is home.

Nelson has just flown back from Oakland, where Miss Joy is recovering from hip-replacement surgery. Nelson has been away from the island for a few weeks, and as he shows a visitor around the shops and stores he owns, everyone greets him with welcome-home hugs.

They like the Big Kahuna. In a Lahaina restaurant, I saw a large painting, "Nellie's Poker Room," featuring Nelson and about 20 of his Paia card buddies, including Willie Nelson and actor Owen Wilson. Don Nelson commissioned the painting from a guy who paints pictures in front of Nelson's shops, and sold about 25 of the prints for $1,000 each. Local souvenir stores sell T-shirts featuring the painting.

Nelson says he watched every Warriors game this season and has been in contact with Keith Smart. He says they've spoken about 10 times. As for coaching, "I've not missed it one bit."

But in a recent TV interview, Nelson left open the door for a return to the NBA.

"I just said that because every time I retired and said, 'That's it,' I'd come back and look silly. I'm not planning to come back. It's a perfect time to retire."

"I don't know if it's important or not," he says, sipping a glass of wine.

Looking back, Nelson scoffs at the speculation that he was pulling all the strings on personnel moves. Quite the contrary, Nelson says, he was deliberately kept out of the loop in the last years.

Recalling Cohan's tenure, Nelson said, "I'd usually go in early, 5:30 in the morning. Chris would be there, working out. Every time I started to talk about basketball, he would change the subject immediately, talk about golf or something. Every time."

Nelson says his plan for the 2010-11 season was to play David Lee at center, because he considers Lee a good power forward and an All-Star center.

"I told (management), 'Look, I want (Anthony) Tolliver. I'm gonna need a power forward who can shoot.' They wouldn't give me Tolliver. He was pretty cheap (Tolliver signed with Minnesota for $2.2 million). I didn't ask for much. That's when I knew I was gone."

It's getting near sunset, which means poker time. (When Nelson played for the Lakers, guard Dick Barnett would pick up his hotel phone, riffle a deck of cards into the receiver and say, "Baby, they're playing the national anthem.")

"I gotta get over to Willie's place," Nelson says.

There are about 20 guys who play, eight at a time. They get together in Don Nelson's card room about three times a week, from 6:30 to midnight. One of the regulars dropped dead of a heart attack in the card room a few years ago, and his picture hangs on the wall, along with a cigar tin containing some of his cremation ashes.

Game on at Willie's

When Willie Nelson is in town, the boys play every night at Willie's place a couple of miles down the beach.

Willie and Nellie have been pals for 35 years. They co-own a biodeisel plant in Texas, recycling restaurant grease into truck fuel. Willie might or might not have been the inspiration for a country song Don Nelson wrote, seriously, titled "Whiskey and Weed."

The game is low key and non-raucous, a group of old pals playing poker, much like any neighborhood game, although this isn't a game where you show up with a pocketful of quarters.

Take-out food is spread out informally by Willie's long-time buddy, Mudslide. Someone pops a CD into the stereo, music by Luke Nelson, Willie's son.

The fellas haven't seen Don Nelson for a while. They welcome him back, he tells them about the turtles, and they all get down to business.